The keynote address here at ad:tech Chicago was by Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo and Chief Innovation Officer at Publicis Groupe Media. It took the form of an interview by Drew Ianni of ad:tech. Rishad offered some outstanding advice and comments and below is my take / synopsis of his various comments and statements:

The top 3 aspects of digital Rishad considers worth noting:

• social
• mobility
• search

The issue with social is that it is relatively easy to scale the audience, but difficult to scale the marketing.

Both agency structure and client structures are not built for the future of marketing and needs to be changed.

One of Rishad’s biggest issues is that it is not about advertising but about marketing.

He referenced a recent study in terms of which all the various marketing and advertising channels were surveyed to measure its efficiency. Out of a scale of 100, TV scored 112. According to Rashid TV still works. Word of Mouth however scored 132. This is where social media comes in and where it can be utilized to market a company’s products and services.

He also believes that the single greatest thing a company can do to sell more is not advertising or marketing, but rather to have a  superior product or service or a niche market. This will get people talking and do more for your business than any marketing or advertising. He cited Google and Apple as good examples of companies that get people talking.

One of the major benefits of social media is the way it allows a brand to LISTEN to its clients and detractors. Focus on those detractors and their influence and not just on your fans.

Drew Iani and Rishad Tobaccowala

Google cuts staff as radio plan fails

http://tinyurl.com/cq5a7g

This just in from Andy Beal:

See how you can ruin your online reputation in just a couple of hours, courtesy of the Michael Phelps case study.

oh well, it seemed the print thing wasn’t going as well as planned. Not being content to be the world leader in online search, Google now wants to try its hand ( and what a hand it holds…) at radio ads.
See Clickz for the whole tune

Well, the world is really a global village they say.

I guess that not only applies to countries being intricately linked when it comes to both economical and political matters, but also industries.

If people loose money on investments and property they must spend less. If they spend less, sellers of products advertise less.

And yes, at the end of the day, Google is just an online publisher: selling ad space.

So, hearing of Google having to lay off people shouldn’t be any more surpising than Pepsi or BP doing the same.

10 000 jobs however? Now that’s HUGE

Read about the speculations on Webguild

YouTube Insight has helped millions of you learn more about your YouTube videos and figure out when, where, and why your videos are popular. But what if you could learn not just which of your videos are hot on the site, but which specific parts of those videos are hotter than others? What if you could know exactly when viewers tend to leave your videos, or which scenes within a video they watch again and again?

Well, in case you didn’t already know, YouTube now has an insight called “Hot Spots” that can help you with exactly this.

See Your YouTube Video: Hot or Not on Google’s blog.

On my way to work this morning I heard about him for the first time. Zakumi is the name of the official FIFA mascot for the 20101 Football in SA.

So of course my first “task” of the day was to see what Zakumi’s online presence and profile is like, keeping in mind that he was only “born” last night, 22 September. The name “Zakumi” is a composition of “ZA” standing for South Africa and “kumi”, which translates into “10″ in various languages across Africa.

Doing a Google search, I found Seattle Times to be # 1 in the results for .com and for pages from South Africa, coda.co.za was first. No PPC ads YET for either local or international search.

My next step was to see what www.zakumi.co.za/com looks like. I must say I was disappointed to arrive at FIFA.com. Yes, the homepage, not even a dediciated Zakumi page. They do in fact have a www.fifa.com/zakumi that features news and a slide show of the green leopard. Oh, wait, I see a video as well, let me have a look at it.

Well, it seems that FIFA does not like Mac’s…a pity. The message I get when clicking on the video link:
Sorry, FIFA.com videos cannot be viewed on a Mac OS.

Time to see what Zakumi’s social profile looks like online:

1. Youtube: 3 videos
2. Facebook: 6 different profiles / fan pages
3. Zoopy: nothing yet

So, all in all not bad for a baby that’s only about 12 hours old.

I am constantly amazed at the global fascination with Google. Sure they’re a well known brand ( #1? ) and sure they guys there are internet pioneers.

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Well that was my first reaction when I eagerly downloaded the new Google web browser and was greeted by this…

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So, by now every-one with a blog has had their say about CUIL.com. Why is there so much hype around it when it is so new, untested and just one of many wannabe Googles?

One colleague at work is of the opinion that CUIL knows all about PR. I first heard about it on CNN. Then of course all those blogs and online articles. The hype of the huge amount of pages they index, the fact that there are a number of ex-Google employees involved and the venture capital behind it.

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